Mars landing tonight

I am really looking forward to it. The team has a very difficult procedure ahead of them.
 
hooligan said:
I am really looking forward to it. The team has a very difficult procedure ahead of them.
Click to expand...

I will be watching, I'm in PDT zone so won't be too late. Re the team's "difficult procedure" All can do is sit there and wait. The difficult part was when they wrote the program controlling the automatic sequence. The 14 minute lag in signal makes real time control impossible.
 
I watched the launch on the Nasa channel but I didn't keep up with the schedule. I'll be up late tonight.

This is the stuff I live for:).

Thanks for the reminder!
 
I'm going to try to stay up for it. 12:30am here, and I have to work tomorrow. It's going to be spectacular one way or another.
 
Successful touchdown, first images already received. Looks very good so far!
 
First photo:

attachment.php


Now we know why Harry disappeared from here. :rofl:
 

Attachments

  • 10-marvin-the-martian.jpg
    10-marvin-the-martian.jpg
    15 KB · Views: 217
No news on the unfolding yet, or at least no pictures from the main camera. The only pictures on the MSL site so far are HazCam photos.
 
azure said:
No news on the unfolding yet, or at least no pictures from the main camera. The only pictures on the MSL site so far are HazCam photos.
Click to expand...


The last I heard was that NASA expects to have HiRes pictures later this week. The pics have to be uploaded to the MRO which buffers the data. Then when the MRO has line of sight to Earth only then does it relay the data.

The only reason we have pictures already was luck of the draw. They predicted that the Mars Odyssey Orbiter would still be above the martian horizon at the time of landing. However signal from the orbiter was predicted to be unlikely. Thats why the JPL crew almost jumped out of the chairs when the guy said they had a connection to Odyssey. This allowed them to receive landing data and verify the rover had landed without waiting a day for line of sight comm.
 
Last edited:
I helped the Planetary Society build a mock Mars environment down on the Mall in DC almost 20 years ago, to test rover designs by CMU and others. I met some of the guys who worked on Spirit and Opportunity and probably on this mission as well.

This **** is just so damn cool. When one consideres the planning and attention to detail required, it's just really impressive.
 
How cool is this?! The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped a picture of Curiosity descending to Mars under its parachute!

673736main_PIA15978-full_full.jpg
 
The idea of the "Sky Crane" portion of the landing is very impressive and I'm glad it worked as designed. Now that that is proven tech, I wonder if we'll be seeing that technique more often.
 
AggieMike88 said:
The idea of the "Sky Crane" portion of the landing is very impressive and I'm glad it worked as designed. Now that that is proven tech, I wonder if we'll be seeing that technique more often.
Click to expand...

I'm waiting for my skycrane to drop me on the parking garage roof at work. Dang these technologists are sooooooo slow! :)
 
I remember being glued to my black and white TV when we landed men on the moon. Hope we do the same on Mars before I pass. This was some technological awesomeness.
 
If anyone could point me in the right direction (using only netflix or you tube / internet), I would like to go home tonight and watch videos of this. I don't really get TV reception that well and I hate commercials.

Is it too early for anything to be on the internet? Where should I go to watch this?

Thanks,

Kimberly
 
Kim - CNN has it on there website. Probably have to go to the lead article to get to the link. I watched it on CNN last night.

I thought it a bit strange as each bit of data came in telling them where they were in a sequence that had already happened 14 minutes ago or so. I understand the feelings of success and it was obviously a critical operation, but it was already over, just the news hadn't caught up.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
If anyone could point me in the right direction (using only netflix or you tube / internet), I would like to go home tonight and watch videos of this. I don't really get TV reception that well and I hate commercials.

Is it too early for anything to be on the internet? Where should I go to watch this?

Thanks,

Kimberly
Click to expand...

Kim this is a recording of what I watched last night. It is a panel of experts that met live to discuss the event. Jump to 2hours 10 minutes in the video to watch the landing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJT1d1BKhw&list=FLtUazgggS1eKMsDsMsZ8T0Q&index=1&feature=plpp_video
 
azure said:
A couple more cool images:

1) The heat shield falling away, taken by the MARDI camera on the rover:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/malin-1heatshield_PIA15988-br2.jpg

2) Another (linearized) HazCam image looking toward Mt. Sharp, showing Curiosity's shadow, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/MountSharp-MarsCuriosity.jpg.
Click to expand...

This is a link to a video of the landing taken by the MARDI camera.
http://1.usa.gov/MZqGxv

The video is really interesting. You can even make out the dust being kicked up by the sky cranes engines.

The 190x190 images were made into a stop motion video. In the coming months they will download the full 1500x1600 1500ish images of the entire landing. NASA will make a video of the first complete hi resolution recording of a spacecraft landing on another planet.
 
Last edited:
I'm recording a show tonight documenting the landing on the Discovery channel.
 
I found a series on Netflix about NASA that goes back to the beginning. I'm on episode three or four now. Just awesome. They have re-mastered old video too.
 
Kim,

Do you know the name of the series? Sounds like something I'd like to see.
 
Follow the 20th century's space race all the way to the moon -- and beyond -- in this documentary series. The program features eye-popping footage from a host of various missions, plus in-depth interviews with NASA astronauts and engineers.

(2008)
 
I have seen it, very well done, I watched it on Blue-ray, did not want to sacrifice any quality.
 
This is a pretty incredible color 360 degree panorama (Sol. 3) that someone put together. No seems visible, really outstanding work.

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/msl3-128

And this is a photo of the falling away heat shield (seen before) but this one is so sharp you can even see 9 springs that were used during separation.

index.php
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top